The "New" Metallica

Nothing is quite so difficult to digest as hype. A few years ago, Metallica was preaching loud and proud about how'd they'd changed the face of their music and still kept their legions of fans and were still and ever growing. Then they split with Jason Newsted, went to war with Napster, and fiddled around for a few years while James Hetfield battled with the demon liquor. Next on "Behind the Music," the end of an era...


Now they've got a new bassist from Ozzy's band (Ozzy has a band? I thought Ozzy just walked around in a confused daze, mumbling like the village idiot), who looks like one of Saruman's Uruk-Hai from Lord of the Rings, and a new album that's supposed to evoke the rip-roaring, speed-metaling, Motorhead-worshipping Metallica of Yore. And in true form, everything that's happened to the band since the Black Album is now being mocked in the music press. Load and ReLoad, formerly mere annoyances to old-school metalheads, are now shameful sell-outs to Alternative Nation (The "Alternative" scene was well and truly dead by the time Load was released, but never mind). Garage, Inc. is now a lame attempt at re-kindling the magic. And S & M, the band's double-live album recorded with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, is now so embarrasing as to cause legions of fans to weep quietly in the night, clutching their bruised copies of Master of Puppets. Please.


S & M sucks? I didn't get that memo back when it was released in '99. Back then it was a bold musical experiment, that, unlike earlier rock-classical fusion attempts by the likes of Chicago, actually rocked. Nor do I recall the music critics throwing the hunks of dung at the other 90's albums that they pretend to have now that St. Anger is out. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but it's a hobgoblin that could make some sense of our cultural narratives. Get that, you faux-intellectual wankers?


Incidentally, I've seen the video to the "St. Anger" and it's not bad. Maybe if Lars stops talking like a corporate drone, I may believe these guys are serious.

The Monks -- Black Monk Time

Because of cd-discounter's treachery, my goal of subsuming myself in mid-sixties garage rock was delayed by a month (I got my refund today, and promptly re-ordered The Sonics from a seller I know to be trustworthy). But my dissatisfaction is minimized, because now it's Big Time, it's Hop Time, it's Monk Time!


Picture this: five army draftees stationed in Germany in 1965, sick of the cutesy melodies of the Beatles and their clones. One guys plays guitar and sings, one guy drums, one guy plays bass. So far, so good. The fourth guy plays an organ. Interesting, but not too interesting. Ray Manzarek did that for the Doors, and several bands in the sixties messed with that. The catch is the fifth guy. He plays banjo, with a microphone stuffed in it. Then they all give themselves tonsures -- the reverse mohawk that's been the symbol of the monastic lifestyle since the Dark Ages -- and wear black gowns with white hangman's nooses.


Exactly.


Some folk call the Monks the first punk band, which is taking it a bit far to me. These guys have the abrasiveness, the repeated riffs, the joy in being nasty, but they're missing the crucial element: speed. Granted, the Velvets didn't play all that fast either. It's a conundrum best left to the individual listener.


This stuff is truly demented. The songs lurch along like broken machinery, tearing themselves apart in their bumping fury. My favorite track would have to be "I Hate You," which highlights the band's sense of humor. It's a simple joke, but I haven't seemed to get tired of it yet. Nor of the Monks. Bring it on, Sonics.

Joy Division -- Closer

This arrived with the Monks CD in Amazon's usual timeliness. When I first spun it, it didn't impress me near as much as Unknown Pleasures had. I blame rising expectations, and the fact that I'd read that the aura of Ian Curtis' suicide supposedly hangs about this album like an albatross (it doesn't). But repeated listens have allowed it to grow on me. I hear JD expanding their palette on this one, working with different rythmns and textures. I would say that it's a shame Curtis killed himself and left us with no more Joy Division, but the rest of the band soldiered on and became New Order, which still records and tours today. So the tragedy is minimized.

Returning once more

There really aren't enough hours in the day for me to do all the things I want to do. I've spent three days preparing a packet to submit a short story I've written. It wasn't supposed to take this long, but it has. Such is the way of things.




I've got a couple of entries to blog today, but first I'm gonna use this one to test Blogger's new stuff...See you on the other side.

Gloom

The Orwell-weather persists. Last night I was driving home from class in a bucket-storm: wipers flailing at top speed, visibility down to nothing-plus, afraid to go faster than 45 mph. And then, just as I turn off the highway and onto the road that leads into my neighborhood, it just stops, like somebody turned off a faucet. The dog nearly died after foolishly trying to tangle with a cottonmouth. Suddenly the desert seems a very appealing clime.

Right, soooo...

Post-graduate classes are deceptively difficult. All the work is done on your end. There's no exam, but you're constantly producing documents. I basically wasted my day doing my homework (HOMEWORK, for the love of peanuts) for my education class. It all got done, but it was touch and go there for a while. Especially since my new printer hasn't arrived yet. Thursday's assignment may prove daunting indeed.





Bottom line, I'm mega-super-productive this summer, but I'm not getting done what I really want to get done. I think I need to play Civilization and contemplate this matter.

Updates and Short Takes

Transferring my address book from Hotmail to Earthlink was rather more tedious than I would have imagined, as it had to be done manual. It's amazing how soon we tire of repetitive tasks, even when they are not physically strenuous. Anyway, it's done.





I've ordered the June CD's, and I've ordered them from Amazon. Half.com seemed the way to go, but I've had a really bad experience with one of the sellers. So here's my warning: do not, I repeat, do not, buy anything from the ebay/Half.com seller cd-discounters. The link will explain why. Still no Sonics. I am grossly annoyed.

SOOOOOOOOOOO.....

The week's hiatus was necessary. Around June I feel the need to just walk away from everything that's been driving me nuts (checked the blood pressure in one of those free machines in the supermarket. 142 over 84. Yikes.) But I'll be posting daily from now on, that I can promise you...





In other news, a website I used to write for, Punk Fix, seems to have resurfaced, so I've posted the link. It's the work of basically one dude, and he's very laid back but with a great deal of experience in all thinks punkified.





Also, I done went and bought me a new computer, and got myself a new email address in the process. Please direct your questions, comments, obscene remarks, expressions of outrage and/or righteous indignation, difficulties, doubts, scruples, inarticulate grunts, and childish attempts to call attention to yourself to dukebikerider@earthlink.net. If I like you, I might even explain the "dukebikerider" part.

Coming up for Air...

Anne's blog from a few days ago struck a chord in me. She writes about the crack violence in Baltimore, which is but an hour up I-95 from me. Most of all she mentions the impotence of the city government, even when citizens want to remove the baddies from their neighborhoods. None of which surprises me in the least, but it certainly begs a question or two.





First off, is municipal governement really a viable thing? Can a city hall ever do anything but burden its residents with regulations? Can there ever be enough cops? Can there ever be enough money to pay for all the things a city is required to pay for? How many of those things can safely be privatized?





Secondly, to whom does a society owe its moral obligations? To its productive citizens or its parasites? John Derbyshire wrote yesterday in NRO about the lunacy of British gun laws, and the lengths to which the British government goes to punish citizens who would defend themselves. It's maddening enough, but Derb closes with a reminder of the legal hoops waiting even in our gun-happy USA if a citizen shoots back without all the proper mother-may-I's. Let's see here, scumbags vs. hardworking senior citizen. Can the law really see these two as equal? Deserving of the same rights and priveleges? Do we truly think that creating more and more restrictions on the freedoms of all of us is going to change the behaviors of those who have opted out of our social contract? Why?

Sorry to be Clandestine...

But I'm grading exams. 'Tis the season. I assume the world will still be there when my head rises above the burrow...

Well, Smack My Behind and Call Me Susie...

Allzah.com, the web site I write reviews for, has been updated! You can find my reviews here. There's also a picture of me in my Flock of Seagulls Halloween Costume, but I'm not going to show it to you. So n'yah.

Undercutting

On the one hand, it's hard to stay cheery in the face of the CIA report (here quoted in the Washington Times) that says al-Quaeda is ready to launch further attacks against us: biological, chemical and possibly nuclear. If this is true, then what good has it done us to take out terrorist-friendly regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is it possible that maybe we're missing the head of the hydra?





On the other hand, what further evidence do you need that this is an ongoing struggle? If I saw a way to honestly negotiate with the Islamo-fascists, it might be worth doing. If I could believe that Arab states were to be trusted when they pledged to fight terror, then I might advocate a different approach then the one we are currently engaged in. But I don't see reason to believe in either. As a result, we must carry on, carry on.

By the Way...

Music links updated for the new month. And no, I haven't got my damned Sonics album yet. If it doesn't arrive today, someone's gonne be getting a mighty bitchy email....

The Sullivan Act

I should have known that Andrew Sullivan would wig out about Eric Rudolph. If I were a gay man, I'd be really uncomfortable around fundamentalists of any stripe. As it stands, I hope they string Rudolph up, or at least lock him up in the deepest, darkest cell they can find. But today the old boy really overreacts. Entitling his entry "Christo-Fascism," Sullivan seems to want to have it both ways, arguing that of course "the concept of a christian terrorisr" is an oxymoron, but then points out that "the crusades were a form of terror. So was the Inquisition at a state level."





Really? I was under the impression that the Crusades were a series of wars designed to take back lands that had been gained by Islam through military conquest in the 7th century. As with many wars of that (or any) era, civilians were directly, often deliberately, harmed. To call this terror is to call all warfare up to (and perhaps including) the Iraq war terror. One could say that the religious aspect of the Crusades grants them special calumny. But then how can one say that "christian terrorist" is in any way self-contradictory?





As to the (Spanish) Inquisition, it wasn't terror. It was tyranny. There is a difference. A subtle one, but it is there. Terrorists are extrapolitical, they exist outside the state. They may be in line with the state's goals (such as the Ku Klux Klan), but there is a line of seperation for the purposes of plausible denial, and just as often terrorists are engaged in overthrowing an established power. Terrorists are guerrillas who target civilians. The Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, was an endowment of the Kingdom of Spain, established for the express purpose of carrying out Ferdinand and Isabella's instructions regarding conversos, those Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity at the state's prodding. It enjoyed the state's full and open support, and crushed opposition with the mechanisms of the state (The Pope's sole involvement in this enterprise was to appoint a Dominican friar -- the notorious Torquemada -- as its head later on, to rein in the abuses of the system. He did so, but insincere converts were still punished). This is tyranny, and that word exists so that we can use it. Let's not start calling everything terror, shall we, Sully? Keep this up and before long you'll be calling tax cuts a weapon of mass destruction.

People, People, People...

I 'gin to be aweary of all the monday-morning quarterbacking with regard to the aftermath of the Iraq war. Some of you out there seem really upset by the fact that Baghdad fell to our tanks and terrorism wasn't magically whisked away to the land of Nod. Andrew Sullivan seems to be worried that the lack of WMD's we've found since the war ended somehow undermines our victory. Mark Shea, the author of the "Catholic and Loving It!" blog, is ready to declare quagmire. The Post has been running this way for some time, and when the most hawkish liberal establishment paper starts to wobble, you can bet the rest are. The stupidity is complete.





Nothing demonstrates the problem with our surfeit of media than this, our lack of patience. Folks, Germany had not been de-Nazified, nor been given a democratic government, in July 1945, two months after the Third Reich surrendered. It defies my understanding as to why anyone would expect two months to take care of everything we need to take care of in Iraq. Running a foreign country is not an easy task. It's dangerous and time-consuming. Lots can go wrong. Some things have gone wrong, but I don't think those things add up to the trend that some of you seem to want them to. There are problems, but I have confidence, because we are led by a man who, as near as I can determine, is sincere in his desire to be benificent to the Iraqi people, and has the moral courage to see the thing through. If the poltroon from the southerly state whom I excorciated yesterday were still in charge, I would know the venture to be doomed. The man who retreated from Mogadishu would feel hypnotically compelled to assuage every negative voice on Iraq. But he isn't in charge, so I'm not worried. You may think this mindless of me, but consider two things: 1) no fretting by me is going to change the situation in Iraq for good or ill, and 2) all the naysayers have been wrong thus far.





On WMD's, on the other hand, we do have to confront the following dirty secret: they weren't the real reason we invaded. Saddam's chems, bios, and nuclear program made for a nice fig leaf for the international community, and removing any he had from him hands was obviously not a bad thing. But they were a side-issue against the greater goal.





The Bush Doctrine, issued soon after 9/11, was clear: there is no distinction between terrorists and states who support terrorists. Afghanistan, the crash-pad of Public Enemy Number One, was the first state to discover that Bush meant it. The link between the Taliban and al-Quaeda was evident. With Iraq it was more tenuous, but put your mind at rest. Saddam knew terrorists, and gave them money and safe haven. He had to go. Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia will all be dealt with, according to different schedules and strategies. The fact that his WMD's are better hidden than we had anticipated isn't relevant. That's one less source of support for Hezbollah and every other cell of hate that plagues our world. Let's not be legalistic. Do you really think we can annihilate al-Quaeda, leave the rest, and be any safer?





The hand-wringers have been saying since before the second tower even fell that terrorism is the expression of a poor and benighted people struggling with oppression. And they're right, though perhaps not in the way they intend. And we're doing something about it. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, or resolve itself as cleanly and telegenically as a season of Survivor. So fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy war.

A Rant for the Day

The Washington Post reports that Bill Clinton thinks Presidential term limits should be changed. He thinks that a young president who does his two terms should have a chance to be re-elected in the future, if the people should suddenly have a need that only he can fill ("I got a great corkscrew"). And of course, he's totally and completely not talking about himself. And Nixon wasn't talking about anything illegal during that 18-minute gap. Did we really give this clown eight years in the White House?





I know, I know, surprise, surprise. What else is Clinton going to say? But that's just it. What else is Clinton going to do, for the rest of his pork-rind-inhaling existence, than make statements about being President, about how the Presidency has affected his life, about his time as President and what the current President should be doing. He's going to be a lame duck for the next thirty or forty years, an endlessly running mouth. Which ordinarily wouldn't bother me, as endlessly running mouths are the single largest product of our media industry. But Billy-Boy is a $200,000-a-year endlessly running mouth. At taxpayer expense.





There used to be a time when politics was something you briefly did to serve the res publica, and then you went back to your farm or business or whatever you were running before you mounted your soapbox. Thomas Jefferson had no shortage of things to do when he was done in Washington. Is it unreasonable for us to expect Bill Clinton to find a legitimate line of work? He's climbed the cursus honorum of American politics already. Go back to Arkansas and find a big-haired girlfriend, will you? Or renounce your womanizing and be a good house-husband for Hillary, picking out fabric swatches and pestering the butler with stories about all those jobs you "created." I don't care. Just leave us alone.





While I'm huffing, when did this Presidential Library thing happen? Did Washington have a Presidential Library? Lincoln? Either Roosevelt? What petty glorification of the Commander-in-Chief is this? I can't imagine why anyone would think we needed to have every stately nuance of the Johnson Administration (Motto: "I Fought the Poverty, and the Poverty Won") set down for posterity. All of this Solemnity and Grandeur with regard to the Presidency merely balloons it into something it oughtn't be. The man is our employee, the COO we pick to keep the coasts defended and the money supply honest. Everything else is bullcorn.

I swear...

One of these days, I'm going to learn. I'm going to resist the urge to go out drinking on a weeknight. I'm going to NOT stumble in at 2:30 in the morning, NOT make do with four or five hours of sleep, NOT spend my day dogging it. I'm really getting to old for this sort of thing.


I have an excuse. It's a lame one, but I have it. There was a woman involved. Lord pity me.

By the way...

My "on deck" CD's have been ordered, and Unknown Pleasures arrived this past week. Being intriqued by what I saw and heard in 24 Hour Party People, I was really excited to get some Joy Division. I haven't stopped listening to it. The atmosphere is claustrophobic but utterly addictive. I find myself seeing with new eyes the looped, buzzing aesthetic of 80's New Wave. Punk had failed to kill Rock n' Roll, as it had promised, but it had (and has) utterly left it's mark upon pop music. The only place to go was inward, to the individual hell of the postmodern age. And if we can have some bouncy riffs and pavement-cool melodies along the way, then rock on.

Freedom of Speech

Here's an interesting and mostly fair article in today's New York Times on the growing movement of conservatism on college campuses. The article dispenses with the usual snideness regarding the concept of "young conservative" and actually tries to put what it's seeing in a non-ideologically-biased context. And it's the New York Times!





Thoroughly unsurprising is the reaction of left-leaning academics to the intellectual antibodies these young righties avail themselves of. One professor charges that the tilt to the right has put an end to "the openness of a number of students to new ideas and new ways of thinking." I hesitated to actually put that in quotes, as it seems so stereotypical. Arguments in bad faith are often worded thus: to disagree, even disagree vehemently with a position never means that you have weighed an idea and found it wanting. Oh, no. It must mean that you are emotionally shut-off from such ideas, that your brain crimethoughts them away.





But let us take the professor at his word, and accept that "students are much more willing to write off something as 'liberal talk' -- oh, I don't need to think about that, that's just ideology -- as opposed to thinking, in a complex way, about all of the different ideas and evaluating them." From what I remember of college, 18-to-21-year-olds are like that (as are just about everyone older). At what point were Professor Schneider and his ilk ever "open" to old ideas? Did they ever truly think, in a complex way, about concepts like the Laffer Curve or the anthropic principle? Or did they dismiss them as "bourgeois talk" - mere Republicanism?





No accusation is easier to make than "hey, you do it, too," and that's really not my purpose. If the young conservatives are ideologically driven, if they take their marching orders according to a set of dogma and deviate not from them, then that's something a university should challenge. But I expect that most universities are ill-equipped to do so, because they have only their own dogmas to fall back on. Thinking in a complex way about ideas does not mean, or should not mean, fuzzy-mindedness, and openess to new ideas is not the same as dedication to them. Until the professors can demonstrate a real willingness to consider all ideas, their platitudes to that effect will be met with rolling eyes.

Blame Global Warming

The weather 'round these parts has been excessively gloomy for May. Usually, we're preparing for 3 straight months of 90-degree temperatures by this time. Of course, that would require the sun to come out. It's been overcast and rainy for a week or more; very unpleasant.


Back in my college days, we used to call this kind of weather "Orwellian," because it conjured up images of 1984 in our heads. And in our own perverse way, we enjoyed it; the opaque sky seemed so much more frought with meaning and tension than any merely sunny day ever could. And there are still pleasures to be gained from the cloudy days. Conversations are more muted; there isn't any particular rush about one's tasks, and at the end, you tend to curl up in a chair with a book or a movie and enjoy the comforts of shelter. At the same time, I know what it is to miss the sun. One needs days to run happily between heaven and earth.